Earlier this week, a jury from the Georgian National Film Center (GNFC) in Tbilisi chose "Scary Mother," a Georgian-Estonian co-production, as the country's selection for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film category.

The acclaimed drama by Georgian director Ana Urushadze had its word premiere at the 70th Locarno Film Festival on Aug. 3, here it won the Concorsa Cineasti del Presente award for Best First Feature as well as the Youth Jury award. It then went on to win the Grand Prix and Cineuropa special prize at the 23rd Sarajevo Film Festvial, spokespeople for Estonian production company Allfilm said.

"This is the first feature film by a young director which has been doing very well so far — in addition to the prizes already won, the film is slated to feature at numerous renowned festivals all over the world," Ivo Felt, one of the film's producers, said in a press release. "We will see how the film will perform in the fierce competition for the Oscar, and we will help as much as we can."

"Scary Mother" stars Nata Murvanidze as a 50-year-old housewife struggling to choose between family life and a passion for writing which she has suppressed for years. Deciding to follow her passion, she plunges into writing, sacrificing herself mentally and physically in the process.

The film is produced by Lasha Khalvashi, Tinatin Kajrislvili and Ivo Felt.

Felt is also known for his work on Estonian-Georgian co-production "Tangerines" (2013), which was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, and Finnish-Estonian-German co-production "The Fencer" (2015), which was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category.

The Reform Party's parliamentary group in the Riigikogu decided on Monday to support Kalle Laanet's candidacy for the position of deputy speaker. This means that the group has turned on party chairman Hanno Pevkur, who will have to make way for Laanet. The decision follows yet another weekend of bickering and conspiracy theories inside Estonia's leading opposition party.